Like so much of Nauman’s work, Days was born of a certain frustration: “I was having a hard time working, but still I would go into the studio every day,” he recalls. “Day after day I kept thinking, what am I going to do, it’s Monday, it’s Tuesday, and then I thought: OK, I’ll do something about the days of the week.” The result was a corridor-style work both imposing and nearly invisible. Days fills the gallery with a double row of slender speakers, which emit a surge of voices reciting the days of the week out of order. Unlike the day, the year, or the changing seasons, the week has no basis in nature—yet its familiar sequence of days is fundamental to how we organize our lives. By tampering with the routine progression from one day to the next, Days invites reflection on time and how we spend it.

Submitted by Taylor Walsh, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints